


warm me up and breathe me

by caelestys



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelestys/pseuds/caelestys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is part of a SafelyHome program where pairs of students walk people home to their dorms late at night. Steve generally hates being looked after... but doesn't really mind when Bucky does it.</p><p>  <i>Bucky can feel his ears turning red. He hands Steve’s backpack over. “Are you sure you don’t want a walk home?” he blurts, and mentally high fives himself for not stuttering.</i></p><p>  <i>Steve tilts his head, hooking a thumb into the strap of his bag. “Nah, that’s okay. Maybe next time, though."</i></p><p>  <i>Bucky shrugs and smiles, then retreats to his bench to hide behind Natasha, who’s wilfully ignoring the proceedings to read on her Kindle. He’s mildly aware of Sam and Steve exchanging a hug and having a brief, murmured conversation, then Steve's walking away and Sharon and Sam are both smirking at Bucky like he has a secret and they’re about to painfully and shamelessly exploit it.</i></p><p>  <i>“Fuck off, both of you,” he says, before they can say anything, and lets Natasha scrub her fingers consolingly through his hair, even if she <b>is</b> grinning at him while she does it.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	warm me up and breathe me

The annoying thing about the Safely Home program, Bucky thinks grumpily as he rubs his gloved hands together and sticks them under his arm pits, is that nobody wants to do it once the weather gets cooler. And today, with the weather dropping below the forties, Bucky finds himself too cold to even flip through the class notes he brought with him. No one’s agreed to a walk home yet, so he hasn’t even been able to use the excuse of a long walk to warm his limbs up, and it’s barely 1am.

“This sucks Hade’s balls,” he grumbles, positioning his flask of hot coffee—free from the angels working at the 24/7 bagel store—carefully and strategically between his thighs. He hugs his arms to his chest. He can barely feel his own body through the three layers and thick coat that he’s wearing. Hell, he can barely hear himself through the scarf he has wrapped around his neck and chin.

Natasha, as always, is prim and proper as a queen as she eyes him over her own flask of hot chocolate. “It’s not even snowing yet, James,” she says.

Bucky groans at at the thought of trekking through a snowy campus in the dead of the night in the middle of winter, and shudders. “The minute the snow hits, I ain’t getting out of bed for anything except class and food.”

Natasha knocks her shoulder against his. “You say that every year. And yet...”

“Not my fault these freshmen runts are too dumb to wrap up before walking home,” Bucky grumbles, but it sounds like a concession, even to him. He buries his face in his coffee and inhales to avoid Natasha’s carefully hidden smile.

The library doors swing open and a tiny girl walks out, books hugged carefully to her chest. Bucky pastes a friendly smile on his face. “Hey, need a walk home?”

She smiles shyly at him and shakes her head. “Nah, I’m only about a two minute walk. Thanks, though.”

“Man, admit it,” Sam says as she walks away, sitting cross-legged on the bench in front of them. Bucky hates him because he doesn’t even look cold, just as relaxed as ever, arms spread across the back of the bench. His bike is splayed helter-skelter against the bench, and Sharon looks pink-cheeked and windblown from their last walk. “You’re just a big softie at heart.”

“I will admit to nothing,” says Bucky, and gulps down some coffee, ignoring Sharon’s snicker.

It’s not even that SafelyHome pays particularly well, or that he’s building a spectacular resume. For all the training and police checks that he’s had to go through, it’s not really worth the time or effort, especially considering that the longer walks mean that sometimes he only gets back to his room at four in the morning.

But Bucky sleeps better at night knowing that people aren’t walking home alone. He likes making sure they get home safe. Bucky’s mom used to joke that if he hadn’t gotten his engineering scholarship, he would’ve ended up a cop, or in the army. His kid sister, Becky, is heading off to college in the fall. He likes to think there’d be something like SafelyHome on her campus, walking her back from the library to her dorm in the dead of the night when she’s finished cramming for finals.

For all the posturing and grumpiness, Bucky would happily give up two or three nights a week to walk other people’s sisters and daughters home. It’s not like he sleeps that much at night, anyway. And he trusts himself more than he trusts half the assholes in this place.

Plus, the free coffee from the bagel bar really helps.

A guy walks out of the library doors, awkwardly trying to swing his backpack over his shoulder and tug a jacket over his zip-up hoodie at the same time. He looks hilariously tangled, trying to push his black-framed glasses up his nose as he does it, limbs going every which way at once.

“Need a walk home, Steve?” Sharon calls, and Bucky glares at her. Sam and Sharon have already gotten in two walks tonight and Bucky is bored out of his mind. Not to mention cold.

The guy—Steve—looks up, his backpack hanging off one elbow. “Nah, that’s okay,” he says, blushing, like he’s just realising how he looks, tangled in sleeves and backpack straps. He stops and hands his backpack to Bucky. “I’m sorry, I look like an idiot, I can’t seem to—can you hold this?”

Bucky takes it wordlessly. Under the flickering yellow light, Steve's eyes are bright blue and framed with long lashes, and his lips are bitten pink. He’s fucking gorgeous, and Bucky’s mouth goes dry. Steve shrugs on his jacket and straightens his glasses. “It’s like my brain turns off after midnight or something,” he says self-deprecatingly, grinning shyly.

Bucky can feel his ears turning red. He hands Steve’s backpack over. “Are you sure you don’t want a walk home?” he blurts, and mentally high fives himself for not stuttering.

Steve tilts his head, hooking a thumb into the strap of his bag. “Nah, that’s okay. Maybe next time, though."

Bucky shrugs and smiles, then retreats to his bench to hide behind Natasha, who’s wilfully ignoring the proceedings to read on her Kindle. He’s mildly aware of Sam and Steve exchanging a hug and having a brief, murmured conversation, then Steve's walking away and Sharon and Sam are both smirking at Bucky like he has a secret and they’re about to painfully and shamelessly exploit it.

“Fuck off, both of you,” he says, before they can say anything, and lets Natasha scrub her fingers consolingly through his hair, even if she _is_ grinning at him while she does it.

 

+

 

He’s paired with Sharon on Friday night. Fridays are simultaneously the best and the worst because half the student population heads out to Alexander Street to get drunk and grind, rain or snow, hell or high water, which means that there aren’t that many people around studying.

On the other hand, after a full day of his own cramming, Bucky kind of wishes that he was out downing quarter beers like there’s no tomorrow and playing pool.

Instead, he’s waiting on an excruciatingly slow trickle of people to leave the library. He’s sitting here with his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets and trying not to fall asleep against Sharon’s shoulder. She’d brought a flask of soy hot chocolate with her, made in a pot over the stove in her dorm kitchen with actual Cadbury chunks and cinnamon, and Bucky had practically cried all over her and inhaled it, but it’s all gone now. Tony and Pepper, each having eviscerated a final in the last two days, are genuinely dozing off in a puppy pile on the next bench over. Bucky would kind of want to join in if he wasn’t sure that Tony wouldn’t try to feel him up.

At least Natasha makes a good hugging companion for the colder nights. Sharon can’t fucking sit still. He looks longingly at the two of them, looking warm and cuddly in their jackets and boots.

“Oh hey Steve!” Sharon says, and Bucky jolts all the way awake.

“Hey, Sharon,” Steve says cheerfully. Bucky thinks he looks way too chipper for a midnight study session on a Friday night when he could be out partying, but maybe Steve’s not into the Friday night bump and grind. His hair is messed up like he’s been running his fingers through it, and he has ink stains on his fingers.

“This is Bucky, SafelyHome extraordinaire, supplier of coffee,” she says, gesturing to Bucky. Bucky waves, and is oddly delighted when Steve tilts his head to the side and gives him a warm smile.

“Yeah, we met briefly the other night. I’m Steve. You have coffee? We’re about to be best friends,” he says, extending a hand. Bucky takes it.

“Need a walk home?” Sharon says.

“I don’t think so,” Steve says easily, zipping his jacket up. Sharon, who’s been bored enough to brave frostbite to play Candy Crush on her phone for the last half an hour, puts her hands on her hips.

“Do us a favor and let us walk you home, Rogers,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

Steve’s eyes flicker to Bucky, and he shrugs, smiling. “Well, if you insist.”

They pull their bikes to rights and start the trek back to Steve’s, Sharon admonishing him gently along the way. “I know you hate being looked after, Steve,” she says.

Steve sighs and scratches the back of his head. “I think you mean coddled,” he says darkly, but then smiles gently at her to soften the blow.

She lays a hand on his elbow. “But remember last winter when your asthma got really bad? I thought Sam was going to have a heart attack when he found out that you nearly passed out walking home from Alexander.”

“Last year was just a bad year!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to care,” Sharon says kindly as they reach the steps to Steve’s dorm. Then, “Speak of the devil,” she says, fumbling in her pockets, her phone buzzing loudly.

“You have asthma?” Bucky says, frowning, as Sharon steps away to take Sam’s call.

“It’s not that bad. I was just really sick as a kid. Modern medicine works wonders, you know,” Steve says. “I just had a really bad year last year.” He blushes and ducks his head, searching for his keys.

“My sister has asthma,” Bucky says, propping his bike up and leaning against the railing. “She has really bad winters, too,"

Steve wrinkles his nose apologetically like he wants to say something, then thinks better of it. “I don’t actually live very far,” he says, switching tack. “That’s why I didn’t ask you to walk me home last time. I mean, it’s not like I really need it, and there are other people who do, you know? The grad villages are like a twenty minute walk. It's way further than where I am.”

He looks adorably shy, looking at Bucky through his eyelashes. Bucky is oddly charmed, which must be why he has a temporary break of insanity and says, “Trust me, Steve—if I said I wanted to walk you home, it wouldn’t be out of obligation.”

Steve looks at him in surprise, and Bucky backtracks, feeling off-centre. “I mean, it’s my job, yeah, but you seem pretty cool, it wouldn’t be no skin off my nose,” he says, shrugging.

“Okay,” Steve says, slowly, looking at Bucky like he’s trying to figure him out. Bucky isn’t sure if he likes what he sees, and he fidgets uncomfortably. He gives Steve a big, fake sigh and grin. “Well, now that we’ve seen you home nice and safe, my job here is done.”

Steve smiles. “Thanks, Buck,” he says, then looks over his shoulder and waves at Sharon. “Night, Sharon.”

“Remember what I said, Rogers,” she tells him sternly, slipping her phone back in her pocket.

He knocks off a casual salute, and disappears through the door.

It’s only when they’ve ridden halfway back that Bucky realises that Steve called him Buck, and that he kind of liked it.

 

+

 

Steve seems to have an awful inability to read the weather report before he hits up the library, which is why Bucky thanks God that the lady at the bagel bar loves him, because he has freshly brewed, caramel infused coffee in a flask the next time he’s on SafelyHome duty.

Steve’s dressed in a measly zip-up hoodie and a long-sleeved henley, and he tries to hide a shiver upon his exit from the library that nobody misses.

He shoots a glare at Sam before Sam can even offer to take off his coat, and Sam laughs and backs off, hands in the air. “Hey man, you just looked cold, is all.”

“I live literally a five minute walk away, Sam,” Steve says, but allows Sam to bring it in for a hug. Bucky doesn’t miss the way Sam rubs his hands up and down Steve’s arms in a blatant attempt to warm him up. “I’ll be fine.”

Bucky steals an extra cup from Pepper, who’s paired with Sam tonight - she always double-cups her coffee in an attempt to keep it warm as long as possible - and pours Steve a cup, then hands it over.

“Not you too,” Steve says, but his happy sigh upon taking a sip gives him away.

“You said we’d be best friends if I supplied you with coffee,” Bucky says flippantly. “Plus, she gave me like a whole flask, and it’s already midnight. I still want to be able to sleep when I get home.”

“This is amazing,” Steve breathes, and Bucky tries not to find the way he crosses his eyes when his glasses fog up adorable. “Thanks.”

Bucky ignores the way Sam waggles his eyebrows and nudges Pepper with his elbow. “Need a walk home?” He asks, and swishes the coffee around in his flask for good measure. “There’s more coffee.”

Steve groans, and Bucky is surprised when he says, “Oh, God. Okay, yeah, a walk home would be great.”

Despite the cold weather, they take a long, meandering walk home. Natasha’s on the phone sorting something out with her roommate the entire time. Her conversation turns into their plans for the Christmas break, and if she notices that they don’t cut through the quad and instead take the long way round, past the Arts Hall and the middle campus dorms, walking like they have all the time in the world, she doesn’t say anything.

It leaves them lots of time to talk, and Steve tells Bucky all about growing up in Brooklyn—just three minutes walk from each other, leaving Bucky kicking himself over the circumstances that never brought him into Steve’s orbit. He’s a double major in Fine Arts and Psychology, and he met Sam in his freshman year in 8am psych labs, trying not to tear their hair out over t-tests and statistics.

Bucky feels hopelessly and magnetically drawn to him, to the self-deprecating way he ducks his head and blushes, to the sad look on his face when he tells Bucky about his sickly mother and his dead father. He tells Bucky about being beaten up at school before he hit his growth spurt and grew both upwards and outwards, and Bucky wants to travel back in time so he could finish the fights that Steve started, defend small, sickly Steve from anyone who’d ever tried to hurt him.

He tells, Steve, too. Not in as many words, and careful to avoid sounding too much like he wants to take care of him, but with a hand on his shoulder and a, “Shit, that sucks, man. Kinda wish I’d been there to back you up.”

The walk takes fifteen minutes instead of five, and it feels like a blink of an eye. Steve drinks another cup of coffee, admitting that it never seems to keep him awake but does give him the jitters for hours.

“Next time I’ll just bring you hot chocolate,” Bucky says, when they reach the front doors of Steve’s dorm. He doesn’t want the night to end, and he wants Steve to keeping looking at him like that forever, with that soft, intrigued look.

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Nah, you don’t have to do that.”

Bucky steps closer, hoping he’s not reading the vibe wrong, heart hammering in his chest. “I kinda want to, though,” he says.

“I really do like hot chocolate,” Steve murmurs. He’s biting his lip, gaze hovering somewhere around the vicinity of Bucky’s chest.

“Okay,” Bucky says, feeling his heart bloom open warmly in his ribcage. “Next time, then.”

 

+

 

He’s studying in the campus Starbucks late on Thursday afternoon after his Mech Eng class, biting the tip off a pen and scrawling diagrams into a notebook. He honestly thinks Starbucks runs a few degrees too cold for human comfort in an effort to make sure that people don’t stay and study. He’s debating getting up for another coffee just to keep himself warm, or just to head back to his dorm and burrito wrap himself with blankets and put on Netflix, when someone puts a cup of coffee down in front of him.

Steve sinks into the armchair next to him.

“Holy shit, you read my mind,” Bucky says, skipping straight past the greeting to make grabby hands at the cup.

“Hello to you, too,” Steve says, but he’s smiling, so Bucky waves him off to inhale his coffee.

“Yes, yes, hi, this is amazing, you’re amazing, hello.”

“It’s just coffee, Buck,” Steve says, and his gaze softens when he leans forward. “How late were you up last night?”

“Four. Is it that obvious?” Bucky says, feeling the coffee warm up his throat. It’s made just the way he prefers it, with a touch of creamer and a sugar, and it tickles him to think that Steve has remembered from the last time he walked him home. Steve moves as if to brush his fingers over the bags under Bucky's eyes. “I have a test tomorrow afternoon, too, and I’m just kinda stressed out about it.”

“Are you worried? I can leave,” Steve says, brow furrowing, and Bucky makes an aborted move to stop him.

“No, no, no—I know my stuff, I’m just, you know. A perfectionist.”

Bucky feels like Steve’s too far away, all the way over in the other armchair. Now that Steve’s here, he’s never going to be able to concentrate, so he shoves his notebook and laptop and various pens into his bag and lifts his coffee to his mouth, giving Steve his full attention. He looks beautiful, fresh-faced and pink-cheeked from the cold, casually dressed in black track pants and a pullover.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky asks. “Studying? Do you ever stop studying?”

“Of course I do,” Steve says, looking equal parts amused and affronted. “I was just getting a coffee on my way to the gym.”

Bucky instantly wilts at the thought that Steve might only be stopping in for a few minutes. “Oh, well, don’t let me stop you.”

Steve shakes his head and leans over. “Nah, the gym can wait. Tell me about what you’re studying.”

And, well, nothing quite gets Bucky going like mechanical engineering, and he’s off like a shot, feeling a tickle in his belly from the way Steve looks at him, amused and interested and fascinated by his waving hands.

Steve doesn’t end up going to the gym that night, and they wind up in the dining hall, kicking their feet together under the booth table and eating hashbrowns and grilled cheese toasties until late-night dining closes, and Bucky never wants it to end, never wants Steve to stop looking at him like he’s new and shiny and fascinating, and he is so, so fucked, but he feels like he’s flying anyway.

 

+

 

“So, Steve,” Natasha says, poking at her steamed vegetables when they catch up for lunch in the dining hall.

“What about him?” Bucky says, feigning an inordinate amount of fascination with strategically piling bits of everything on his plate onto his fork. The longer he’s at college, the less appetising the food is, and he seasons everything liberally with salt before he puts it in his mouth.

“You like him,” Natasha says, straight to the point like she always is.

“Sure, he’s a nice guy,” Bucky says, half-playing around. Natasha has aways had a freakish ability to anticipate what he’s thinking and feeling before he does. Sometimes he thinks she’s legitimately a mind reader, and the only reason he doesn’t believe it is sometimes he yells “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BRAIN” just to see if she’ll flinch. She never does, but she does always look at him like he’s being an idiot, so the jury’s still out on that one.

He’s succumbed to the knowledge that she always knows what’s going on with him, so he occupies himself with sipping his coke noisily through his straw.

“Oh, look, they brought out more pizza,” he says, head popping up over the booth like a meerkat, and Natasha traps him in the booth with a foot shoved up against his side of table.

“James Barnes,” she admonishes.

“Natasha Romanov,” he parrots back at her, because he will always be a little shit to Natasha, because it’s fun trying to rile her up. It never works. He spears her vegetables with his fork and pops them into his mouth.

“Boys,” she says, half to herself. “You always have to be so difficult.” He grins at her with his mouth full of her greens, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Are you going to ask him out?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you like him, idiot,” she says.

“Do not,” he mumbles, scrunching his nose.

She hums at him. Waits it out.

“Do not!"

After a minute, he explodes, right on schedule. “Okay, fine, but I don’t even know if he’s gay, Tasha.”

“You are both actually the biggest idiots. Actually, no, just you. Steve’s fine. You’re the one who’s blind.”

“Hey!"

She knocks her ankle against his under the table and smiles. “Trust me, James, he likes you. Even if he isn’t, he definitely likes you.”

They’ve always communicated through a weird, complicated series of facial expressions and hand gestures, and she wills him into submission with narrowed eyes and an arched eyebrow, while he tries to strategically avoid eye contact by eating everything on her plate. Finally, he scrunches his napkin into a ball and throws it at his plate. “Fine,” he sighs. “Fine, I’ll ask him.”

“Good boy,” she says, patting him on the hand. “There’s hope for you yet.”

“Now can I go get some fucking pizza?” he says, and nearly trips over her foot on the way out of the booth.

“Bring me back a brownie,” she calls after him.

“Get your own fucking brownie, I’m not your enabler,” he yells, but he brings her back three.

 

+

 

Bucky finds out from Sam that Steve stays late in the library from Wednesday to Friday to work on his senior thesis. It’s not a coincidence at all when Sam conveniently finds other things to do on those nights and hands over all his shifts to Bucky. Bucky isn’t grateful, not at all, except he really really is. He is, however, also horribly embarrassed because Natasha is one thing, but he must have been really transparent in order for his friends to orchestrate something like this, and now he generally just tries to avoid eye-contact with Sam whenever Steve comes up in their conversation.

He’s ninety per cent sure that Natasha’s had a hand to play in this, except when he asks, she looks at him with a carefully blank expression and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and returns to reading whatever horribly complicated Russian crime novel she has loaded up on her Kindle for the week.

Steve stops saying no to being walked home, and Bucky starts to look forward to the nights that he knows Steve stays late in the library. He never wears enough layers, and Bucky despairs of him completely, but Bucky also seems to be the only person that Steve will take any mother-henning from without complaining. So he shamelessly abuses that fact to pile Steve up with hoodies and scarves and feed him full of warm drinks, and wilfully Does Not Notice when Steve forgets to give him back his sweaters and half of them go missing from his wardrobe.

Even Sharon makes herself scarce when they’re partnered up to walk Steve home, doesn’t pay them any attention in the five minutes they spend dancing around each other at the front door to Steve’s dorm, then comes back and makes fun of Bucky’s romantic ineptness to everyone else who’s waiting with baited breath for the latest edition of the Steve and Bucky saga.

Steve, for the most part, seems to think it’s hilarious, and Bucky doesn’t know what’s stopping himself from just leaning forward and putting his mouth on Steve's, but it might just be the fear that he won’t get to see Steve’s laughing face and bright blue eyes under the streetlamp outside his building at 1am anymore. It’s stupid little things like, what if he misses and gets his chin instead? What if he embarrasses himself forever? What if Steve goes, “Wait, what? I’m not gay, I thought we were buddies,” and shuts the door in his face?

Sam reassures him that his fears are unfounded without Bucky even having to tell him anything, and Bucky just scowls at him in return, but brings him salmon and cream cheese bagel when he gets back from his coffee run.

“I knew you loved me,” Sam crows, munching into his bagel, and Bucky kicks him lightly in the foot.

“Shut up.”

“Real eloquent, J.B.,” Sam says, then leans closer and whispers conspirationally, “But you know who you love more?”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Bucky moans.

 

+

 

“You know, you don’t have to be working to walk me home,” Steve says, glancing at Natasha, who’s making herself scarce a few feet away, furiously texting on her phone. Bucky thinks she’s texting Sam. He has no idea what’s going on between the two of them, but Natasha’s barbed flirtation, Sam’s open adoration, Tony’s blatant excitement and Sharon’s increasingly pointed eye-rolls are starting to tell him something. He doesn’t know what they're texting about. He hopes it’s not him.

“I don’t?” Bucky says, confused.

“No. Just like I don’t actually have to stay in the library on Wednesdays to Fridays to study, but I’m now acing my classes and catching colds because I kinda like seeing you at the end of my night.”

“You—what?” Bucky says dumbly.

Steve shrugs and cards a hand through his hair. “You know, I thought I should just say something. You can tell me to fuck off, it’s just, yeah. I just thought—“

“You’ve been catching colds?”

“Seriously, Buck, that’s what you choose to take away from that?”

Bucky glares at him. “Stop being stupid, Stevie, you can’t catch a cold just because you like seeing me. I put all of that effort into keeping you toasty and warm and feeding you hot drinks and now I find out that you’ve been braving the cold just because you want to see me?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Wait, you like me?”

There’s a pause as Steve waits patiently for him to get it.

Then Bucky huffs out a breath. “Oh. Natasha was right. We’re both idiots."

“Of course Natasha was right. She’s always right. About that, but also if it’s about me really, really liking you and wanting to take you on a date that doesn’t constitute a freezing cold walk at 1am in the morning, then yeah, she’s so right that she should win a prize.”

“I don’t—what’s the prize?” Bucky says, swaying closer to Steve like he’s hypnotised. Maybe he is. Steve looks fucking gorgeous under the dim light of his quad, and he’s smiling encouragingly at Bucky. Bucky would happily be hypnotised by him for the rest of his life.

“Definitely not this,” Steve says, and leans forward and kisses Bucky.

Bucky thinks, _Damn right, Natasha’s not getting this_ , then, _Holy shit, Steve’s kissing me_ , and then all his thoughts are lost in a swirl of his hands sweeping flat over Steve’s chest and shoulders, and Steve cupping his jaw to angle his face to kiss him better, then wrapping around Bucky’s waist to pull him closer, and he’s never felt like this, never, burning up in his belly and tingly all the way to his finger tips and it’s totally okay because Steve’s mouth is slick and warm they’re so close together and he doesn’t want to stop, not ever, and the way Steve is biting at his mouth and clenching his hands in Bucky's shirt tells him maybe, maybe, maybe he’s not the only one.

 

+

 

He turns up at the library at eleven on Thursday. Steve, as usual, isn’t wearing enough layers when he comes out, but he doesn’t complain when Bucky loops his scarf around his neck. They both ignore the catcalling and whooping when Bucky kisses him on the cold tip of his nose. Tony whispers loudly, “Awwwwww, cute,” before being shushed by Pepper. Sam says, “Fucking finally,” and Bucky flips him off before getting back to kissing Steve’s soft, bitten-pink mouth.

“Are you working tonight?” Steve murmurs against his mouth, wrapping his fingers in the front of Bucky’s hoodie like he’s going to run away. Like that’s even a thing that might happen. Bucky never wants to run away ever.

“Nah. Came just to walk you home. Alone,” he says pointedly, side-eyeing everyone who’s trying not to watch them, and revels in the way Steve’s face lights up.

Neither of them have classes until 2pm, and he’s got a lot of plans for the both of them the rest of the night. From the way Steve laces their fingers together and shoves both their hands into the pocket of his hoodie, he thinks Steve’s pretty on board, too.

The walk home doesn’t go fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> SafelyHome is loosely based on a program my old college ran where two male and female pairs would hang out outside libraries late at night to walk people back to their dorms, and then bike back. It's a really cool concept.
> 
> This is a quick and dirty practice fic because I've been so ridiculously busy I haven't written anything in about four months, so I apologize for any typos or mistakes.
> 
> Also, my first Stucky fic! Yay me!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://caelestys.tumblr.com). Come say hi!


End file.
